Army Ten Miler & Chicago Marathon

Coach Jerry captured the excellent Pacers GRC//New Balance racing weekend so here it is below.  Keep scrolling for some random pictures from the weekend.  And thank you to George Banker, for making the Army Ten Miler such a great race, to Charlie for hosting a post-ATM gathering, and to Dickson for bringing his adorable son Henry for us to meet at the gathering.  Finally, here is a link to a video of Stephanie breaking the tape in her Army Ten Miler victory, so proud! https://twitter.com/MDW_USARMY/status/785102163051675648

RACES

The highly coveted but rarely awarded GRC Athlete of the Week goes to Steph for her stupendous accomplishment of winning the Army 10 Mile, in a humongous PR of 56:21. Not only did Steph break the club record, she destroyed it by almost 90 seconds. To put into context just how fast Steph ran, her 5 mile split would have put her third on the all-time list for that distance. And to make Steph's run that much more impressive, it was a slow day out there due to very strong winds, and while it's impossible to know for sure how much the wind affected the times, its not stretch to say that Steph would have broken 56 in better weather. What we know for certain is that Steph ran an amazing race, and notched the most impressive road win in the history of GRC women's team. Steph was not the only Reich to run an outstanding race at Army, as Stewart made an impressive 10 mile debut in 51:15, which put him in 11th place in a very competitive field.  That performance caps off an impressive week for Stewart, who ran extremely well in the Navy mile, and showed his range by hanging tough yesterday at a distance that is outside of his comfort zone. We're going to see much, much more from those plucky Reichs this fall, and the best is yet to come.

We also had many excellent non-Reich performances at Army. On the women's side, Kerry ran a very strong 59:34 for 4th place as she tunes up for an inevitable massive marathon PR in New York. We dominated the women's team competition, placing all 5 scorers in the top 20, with Maura in 11th in 61:47, Frances L in 12th in 61:56, and Julie in 17th in 63:14. I was also very pleased with Hannah's 63:42 for 21st, which is an extremely promising race for her after an extended injury-induced absence.  On the men's side, the team competition was a tad tougher given the presence of the Army's squad of Olympians, but we still managed to put 7 men in the top 31, with Carlos running a very controlled 52:04 for 15th, Daniel, who was slowed by an ill-timed pit stop, in 52:29 for 19th, Phil in 52:51 for 26th, Sean B and Blake tuning up for MCM in 53:09 for 29th and 53:18 for 30th, and Balmer in 53:23 for 31st. Tom ran a nice PR of 54:12 for 39th, and Charlie ran a solid 55:05 for 61st.

We had a big day in Chicago, led by Pat K's excellent 2:30:08, which made him the 3rd master, and first in the 45-49 age group.  It's hard to overstate how impressive it is that Pat was a few steps shy of breaking 2:30 at age 45, and he once again proved that there's still some fight in that old dog. Zak ran 2:35:17, and was negatively affected by stomach issues in the second half of the race which precluded him from running the big PR he was ready for.  Finally, Chris ran 2:36:31, a PR of more than 6 minutes.  I was extremely pleased with the training cycles from Zak and Chris, and both of them will be real threats to break 2:30 next time out.